You keep walking down the halls, Growing frustrated with the unfamiliar setting. You suddenly are hit with a wave of dizziness, clutching your head and stumbling to catch your balance. When you open your eyes, you’re greeted with rooms you recognize. Maybe this is your way out?

You push open the door to the gym. You’re taken aback by the state of the room. The floors are covered in banners and paper streamers in school colors. Sports equipment littered around the room.

You keep walking down the halls, checking every door that you pass by. No windows. All Locked. You try to recount your steps to find another exit. The halls feel different than you remember. You don’t remember this layout.

You drop the glass back on the floor, confident there’s got to be another way out. You keep walking down the hall, looking for another exit.

You push open the door of the music room. The walls are covered in music puns and class portraits from previous years. The room is dim, lights flickering on and off. You haven’t been in here since you were forced to take that art credit. All you remember of this room is how terrible you were at trumpet.

You walk towards the back of the room to the three identical practice rooms labelled a through c. You don’t remember much practicing ever occurring in there, but a lot of messing around out of the teacher’s earshot.

You walk over to the far wall, swerving between chairs along the way. a tall shelf stands against the wall with shelves labeled with the names of instruments. You stand in front of the wall, scanning each cubicle. All the instruments are gone. Typically, students will bring theirs home to practice, but you’ve never seen the shelves this empty before.

You leave the music room.

You walk towards the exit doors, still blocked in. You look around the barricade and notice a few things shoved out of the way. You start to remember the last time you were here. You pushed those things aside.

You quietly begin to push and shove the equipment away. You suddenly feel a chill down your spine. You hear loud footsteps grow closer from the hall outside. Your pace quickens. As you frantically remove the equipment from the blockade, you can’t help but feel like this is familiar. You hear the gym door slowly creek open. Your heart rate climbs. You hear the monster’s footsteps as it walks closer.

You dive into the pile of gym equipment, pushing yourself through small crevices and cracks. As you dig deeper into the blockade, you start to lose sight of the gym outside. You dig deeper and deeper. You’re sure you would’ve hit the exit door by now. Suddenly, you hear a loud bang. Then another.

You look around at the equipment in front of you and reach for a folding chair. You pick it up, and spin around, slamming it into the monster's side. The chair dents out where you hit the monster. You meet eyes with it for a moment. Both frozen. You throw the chair at it’s head and make a run for the exit. You burst into the hallway, losing your balance and falling on your face. You feel a sting in your head, but scatter to your feet and sprint down the hall.

You run down the hall, looking for somewhere to hide. You turn the corner and are met with a brick wall. Dead end. This wall wasn’t here before. You turn the other way and run. Another dead end. You turn around to run back the way you came. You stand face to face with the monster. It slowly approaches you. A heaviness with every step.

You breathe heavy as you look at the monster in the eyes. Your mind racing trying to think of what to do. Your eyes frantically search the surroundings. No lockers. No doors. The walls are bare. The monster closes in on you.

Out of options, you charge towards the monster, slamming your shoulder into its torso. It barely flinches. It grabs and lifts you up by the arm. You try to kick it, but it doesn’t react. Tears build in your eyes as you fight. The monster raises you up higher, then swings you down, slamming your body into the cold tile of the hallway. You feel a pain you’ve never felt before. Your vision goes dark.

Your name is Ben. You wake up and slowly lift your head. You wake up on the floor of your school hallway. Your head is pounding and your ears are ringing. Your eyes adjust as you look around you.

You stumble to your feet and look around you. The floors and walls are smeared with blood. Before you can think of what to do next, you hear footsteps up the hall. and a dragging sound behind it.

You follow the monster from a distance. Being careful to not make a sound and hiding when it looks back. The body leaves behind a trail of blood as it gets dragged through the hallway. You try to get a better look by risking getting closer, but the oddly familiar body doesn’t have much left to discern.

You slowly try to walk away. Carefully choosing your steps to not make any sound. What you think is just a dark floor tile turns out to be a pool of dark liquid. Your foot slips, creating a loud squeak that echos down the hall. You turn back to see the monster staring directly at you, body falling to the floor as he opens his hand.

You run down the halls. Nothing looks familiar to you. Eventually you arrive to a hall with three labelled doors.

You run into the computer room, the door still broken down from before. You look around for a hiding spot and slide under a table, out of sight from the windows and doors.

You run into the library, nearly stumbling over yourself as you rush in. The library looks even more destroyed than before. You frantically look for somewhere to hide. You run behind a large shelf that toppled over, peeking over the edge, eyes locked on the entrance.

You sprint to the bathroom. You run in and look around. What happened in here?

You look into the mirror and see… The same old you.

You go to leave the bathroom, but are greeted by the monster in the doorway. You rush backwards back into the room. You go to try the stall doors, but they’re jammed shut.

You reach the end of the bathroom, sliding your back up against the wall. You look up at the monster as it approaches. It looks at the mirrors, and rips one off the wall. It walks towards you with the mirror in hand. It holds the sharp edge of the glass to your chest, and begins to dig into you. You hear a crack. Then another. Pain shivers through your body. With one swift push, the mirror digs through your chest, hearing scratches of it hitting the wall behind you. Your vision goes dark.

You sit under the desk, knees pulled into your chest, trying to catch your breath quietly. You watch the ground as you see a shadow cast from someone walking by the door. You then hear the door creek open. The ground shakes with the stomp of its feet.

Without hesitation, the monster slowly walks into the room and turns to look right at you. You squeeze further back under the desk, hoping it didn’t notice you. You jump at the sound of a loud crash. You peek out to see the origin of the noise and see the monster with its fist through a computer screen. It yanks out a handful of wires and turns to you again. The monster grabs the computer monitor with its opposite hand and launches it at you. You snap your head back to dodge it, but smack the back of your head against the wall behind you.

You clutch the back of your head, shutting your eyes tight. You feel lightheaded. While distracted by the pain, the monster pulls you out from under the desk as if you weigh nothing. You try to look at him, but you can’t seem to focus through the dizziness. Before you get a chance to concentrate, the monster wraps the wires around your throat and pulls tight. As you fight for your last breaths, you drop you to the ground. The monster drags you out of the room behind it by the wires around your neck. Your vision goes dark.

Soon after you take your hiding spot, the monster stomps through the entrance. It takes a few steps into the library, then stops. It glances around the room, not noticing you. It looks straight ahead and pauses, staring at the wall for a while, freezing in place. Suddenly, with a quick snap, the monster turns to lock eyes with you.

You begin to crawl to another hiding spot, trying to stay out of sight, when you notice the monster isn’t walking towards you. You watch as it reaches behind the front desk and rummages around the library office supplies. It pulls out a paper guillotine and rips off the blade. You watch as it slides the blade across its fingertips. It turns back around and marches towards you, dragging the blade across the floor behind it, a dark liquid dripping from its fingertips.

You stumble to your feet and run deeper into the library, hoping to lose the monster and take a sprint for the door, but the monster follows you like it’s reading your mind. The monster corners you at the back of the library, forcing you back until you’re pushing up against the wall behind you. The monster takes a step forward as you close your eyes and hold your breath. It plunges the blade through your head. You feel your consciousness begin to fade.

As you continue to walk, the lights get dimmer. You turn back and they continue to get dimmer. With every step, no matter the direction, it all just gets dimmer. Until you cannot see a thing.

You walk through the hallway. Your steps echo as you pass locker after locker. There’s nothing more you can do but walk. You pray that you went the right direction, but there’s no telling. As you walk, you can start to hear an intercom playing the same glitchy evacuation message over and over again.

You wake up to find yourself looking at an all too familiar ceiling. You sit up and look around. You're in your school hallway. You look focus your eyes down the hall, but it goes on forever. It seems to twist and turn as you stare deeper.

You look through the lockers. Hoping that someone just misplaced a door. You just keep finding the same students in the same photos. A photo of three, a photo of two, and a photo of one. Repeating every single time

You wake up to find yourself looking at the night sky. You sit up and see tents, bright lights, and old fairground music. You begin to walk around and see plenty of fun activities. A carousel, various shooting games, and concessions line each pathway of the fair.

You begin to push into the mirrors, thinking one of them could be a door. You run into the mirrors, avoiding eye contact with your reflection. You try this until your arms sting. No luck. With all other options exhausted, you stand in front of a mirror, watching yourself breath heavily.

Out of fear, or pure frustration, you wind up your fist and punch the mirror where your face reflects. The punch shatters the mirror into shards. The reflections around you catch up to your actions. Every mirror begins to crack and shatter with the same impact as your punch. You crouch and cover your head as glass flies all around you.

As you stare into your own eyes and feel an unease. Your reflection doesn’t feel right. You go to wave at your reflection, and it has a slight delay. As if it’s waving back. As you look into each mirror, your appearance warps and changes. You start to look for a way out, running through a maze of mirrors.

You wake up and find yourself staring at a dark ceiling. You slowly lift your head. Your eyes are met with your own reflection in front of you. A tall mirror stands before you.

You push yourself off the ground to your feet. You glance around the small room you find yourself in. The walls are lined with mirrors. You are surrounded by floor to ceiling length mirrors lining every wall.

You look into the mirrors and see... the same old you. But lots of you.

After walking for some bit, you hear a familiar voice. “Well hello there!” As you turn to look at the voice, an impressive fortune-telling machine lies before you.

You watch as the lights shimmer and reflect off of it’s beautifully polished face. The machine moves smoothly as it talks to you. The microphone in its firm grasp, waving its hand with every word.

The figure inside just stares at you. Its mouth opens, and a different voice is heard. “He is the end, and the beginning. Do you ever wonder why everything is happening like this? Or why this damn thing keeps appearing every single time? Or why everyone, EVERYONE BUT ME, seems to just ignore this? It’s not just that it was NEVER just that. You don’t get it this isn’t for me. Or for you. It is for everyone here. This is important. What I do… is finally important. ”

The figure springs to life again. It’s familiar tone returns. “Nothing happened this time. Almost like you were meant to see this.”

Your vision goes black. The quiet of wherever you are is interrupted by a voice. “This one isn’t for you.”

The sound of glass shattering stops. You stand up and look around.

metadata: come

You open your eyes to a black void around you. Darkness as far as you can see. You look around and notice random things float around you. Glass shards, lockers, leaves, coins. You try to make sense of these things, before something catches your eye. ^6750
 through the debris, the red figure stands in the distance. He waves his hand, prompting you to follow.

metadata: i’m sorry you got caught in this. i don’t know if you can even hear me right now

With no where else to go, you decide to follow it. It leads you through the darkness, passing by and dodging floating objects along the way. As you continue to follow him, the items grow less dense, eventually seeing none at all. You wonder how it knows where it’s going, just walking through the darkness with no direction. With each stride, it appears to jolt more violently.

metadata: away from here. out of here.

You try talking to the figure, asking where it’s taking you. It marches forward, not answering. You continue following it through wherever you are.

metadata: we're here.

Suddenly, the figure slows down and stops. Too distracted by looking around, you notice that it stopped in front of a small red orb. It looks familiar, but like nothing you’ve ever seen before. The figure beckons you closer

You approach the figure and the orb. So entranced by the glowing mass, you don’t realize how close you stand next to the figure. You see him closer than you had before. You notice it glitches and jolts far more frequently than before, increasing in intensity. You meet eyes, then it gestures towards the orb once again. You feel a draw to reach out for it.

You approach practice room A. You cup your hands around your eyes to peek inside. It’s too dark to make out anything. You reach for the handle of the door and turn it. Locked.

You approach practice room B. You cup your hands around your eyes to peek inside. It’s dark, but not too dark to see. You see three music stands with a few pieces of sheet music on each. As you scan the room, your eyes wander to the ground. Stacks of sheet music flood the floor, piling a few feet up. As you continue to glance around the room, your eyes keep meeting the stacks of paper. Are they getting taller?

You approach practice room C. You cup your hands around your eyes to peek inside. It’s dark, too dark to make out anything. You reach for the handle of the door and turn it. The door slightly opens.

You push the door open and walk into the room. The dim light from the outside halts at the door, still unable to see much around you. You try closing the door slightly to block some of the light, but the door swings close with a loud bang. In a panic, you grab the door handle and run back outside. You stand outside practice room A. You turn around to face the room you just left. The door is closed. You reach for the handle and turn it. Locked.

You walk into the locker room. You reminisce on your memories in here with your team. It’s emptiness and silence make’s you uncomfortable. You’ve never seen this room so quiet.

You quickly leave the locker room, you hope to be back here soon with your friends. Less scared next time.

You walk towards the bleachers, unease builds with each step. You peek underneath and see a pool of blood underneath it. You gag and take a few steps back without a second thought. Blood never bothered you like that, but you guess it’s different when it's your own. at least you think it is. you hope it is.

With each crash, the equipment around you shifts and shakes. Then it begins to bend in on you. You find the space you sit begin to shrink. Bang. The way you came gets smaller as the equipment caves in. Bang. You feel a sharp pain in your leg. You look down and see your leg caught under a basketball hoop. Bang. You try to pull yourself out. You’re stuck. Bang. You feel a sharp pain through your chest. Your vision goes dark.

You turn to walk away. You don’t want to know where it’s going, and you definitely don’t want it to catch you. As you try to quietly step out of the way, you slip on a patch of blood on the floor and fall to your hands. The monster stops. The monster turns to look at you. It drops the body.

The monster approaches the Greenhouse door. Forcing it open with one hand as it drags the body through.

As you step back from the scene, you slip on the thick blood coating the floor. Your hand reaches out to grab anything to stabilize, and you grab a clay pot, which falls to the ground with a loud crash. You hear the door on the other side slam open.

You approach the door. Nearly slipping on the large amount of blood at the bottom of the doorway, you grasp the handle and gently inch it open as you see the monster in the greenhouse, moving large masses around almost methodically. The smell is too much to handle.

You walk inside the greenhouse after the monster leaves through another door in the back. Walking inside, it takes a second for your eyes to adjust to the dimly lit area, but when they do you find a pair of lifeless eyes looking right back at you. The face is mangled and broken, but you know those eyes. You look around for more clues and find your jacket attached to a body that is nearly cut in half.

You see a book that is wedged into a tree. Seemingly shoved in there. A symbol glows red on its cover. As you get closer, even the sound of the wind now falls silent.

You try and find any sign of life. At this point, even a broken branch on a tree could mean something is in here with you. You can only hear the gentle winds.

You look around the forest for some kind of exit. At this point, even seeing a path marker would at least reassure that you’re on some kind of track. You do not find anything. Just more trees.

You see something out of the corner of your eye and lock onto it. A gentle red glow. You rush towards it to see if it could be something to get you out. You nearly stumble over yourself on the uneven ground before you see it.

You wake up to find yourself looking at the moon. You’re outside laying in some leaves. You sit up and look around at the trees surrounding you. It’s cold, it’s wet, and it's not where you want to be right now.

You listen for any kind of sign, a busy freeway, even a bird would be able to hopefully point you in any direction. You cannot hear any sign of life. It is only you. The trees seem to not have any pattern. You can only walk.

You walk away from the children as they cheer and go to find another game. More children waiting nearby take their place. You try to look for an employee, or an exit, but the games just grow louder and the cheers grow nearly deafening. You start jogging through the corridors between arcade machines but can only find the same structures, and the same machines.

You try to find a game to enjoy while you’re here, at least. You take a look at each title. You would like to think that you’re pretty up-to-date on the latest games, but you don't even recognize the kinds of buttons that these kids are pressing. The only thing you can make out on their screens are the numbers.

As you look through the various screens, you are met with a sudden jolt of sound and light as the power surges, then disappears completely. Shadows creep in as the screens fade to black. You turn around and see that the screams of joy have stopped. The kids are all gone. You walk through the now empty areas of the arcade. You hear a gentle tune play from a machine. You see the red screen glow out of the corner of your eye.

You wake up and find yourself staring at a moldy ceiling. You hear the sound of chip tune themes and effects. You sit up and are nearly blinded as your eyes adjust to the bright screens. You stand up. You can’t make out what any of these games are. They certainly aren’t familiar to you, despite how good some of these kids seem to be at them.

You double-take as you see other kids. You quickly run towards them and try to get help. As you approach them, their eyes don't leave the screen. You explain that you need help. You keep shouting at them, trying to get them to listen to you. You reach out and shake one of them, but their bodies are unaffected by your touch. Your hands can't seem to pierce through to affect them. They only speak about the game, “I keep playing this level over and over, something has to give, right?

You reach out to grab the book. As your fingers graze it your vision goes black. That familiar quiet is interrupted by a voice. 

“This one isn’t for you.”

You walk to the machine and stop just short of its controls. Flashing on the screen is a missing poster, above a >PRESS TO START<. You reach for a button and as you start to press it, your vision goes black. The quiet of wherever you are is interrupted by a voice. “This one isn’t for you.”

You decide to look for something to do to give your mind a break. You see many games, many attractions, yet you lack the means to play any of them. Missing guns at the gun range, missing rings at the ring toss, and even missing ramps to get on the rides prevent you from enjoying yourself in any way here. You even decide to jump the counter of one of the food stands to look for ingredients, but the fridges and cabinets are all empty. You give up, and keep walking.

You keep walking through the fair. Everything is the same, yet different. Repeating carousels and rides of different colors make everything too overwhelming to look at, but you must keep going. You look to the sky and try to make out a star to at least see if you’re going in the same direction. When you look up, you can only see a black sky and the glow of the attractions below it.

“The future is a beautiful thing! Would you like to hear of it? I may not always be clear, but I am certain! ” A large glowing button sits below. “PRESS ME TO HEAR, CHOOSE TO LISTEN. ” Painted crudely onto the wood.

You decide to turn around and keep walking. You don’t have time for this.
“Oh, I think you do. ” It says.
You stop in your tracks and turn back around. “I know you really do want to hear this, but I'm glad you explored your options. ” The Fortune Teller stares blankly.